


A Night at the Opera

by DAIROCKETTO



Category: Persona Series
Genre: Original Character-centric, Original Story in the Persona Universe, There could be some references but canon characters won't show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 22:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11427111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAIROCKETTO/pseuds/DAIROCKETTO
Summary: In New York City, crime is rampant.  A mysterious new drug is creating havoc, and every lowlife looking to make some cash is taking advantage of the panic.  In the midst of this, an average young man discovers there's more going on than a simple crime wave.  Awakened to the power of the Persona, he and a team of friends work to find the source of what plagues their city, and bring the person behind it all to justice.





	1. Knockin' on Heaven's Door

In a dark room, two men are playing cards.

A man in a white suit shuffles, the cards dancing back and forth and between his hands.  The sound echoed around them.  He always dealt.  After all, he would never cheat.

A man in a black suit sits on the opposite side of the simple circular table.  He leans the side of his head on his knuckles, his other hand tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop. 

Once, they would have called their game something else.  A war, a duel, a grand experiment.  But, certain rules had been put in place.  Now there was only the game.  Now it was only the two of them, alone with their cards.

They both hold chips, though the man in white held many more.  The chips on his side are a multitude of colors: violet, red, white, blue, yellow, crimson.  The man in black only holds chips of the same color.  The man in white always changed strategies, the man in black preferred familiarity.  He supposed this was, in a way, ironic.  But, he only had to win once.  He had taken chips off of his opponent, but never truly won.  It was bound to happen eventually.  Even the mortals believed this.  The Law of Averages, they called it.

He observes the chips they have on the table for this new game.  They sit in neat little stacks in the center, all with an emerald gleam.

“Long odds, on these ones.”  The man in black says.

“You know I enjoy a good challenge.”  The man in white replies.  His opponent sneers.

“You talk too much like them.”

“Are you really so different?”

He has nothing to say to that, so they return to silence.

Soon, the man in white finishes shuffling, and starts dealing.  The cards fly easily from his hands, lining up neatly in front of them.  Once finished, he sits down in his own chair.  Crossing one leg over the other, the man in white sweeps his hand out over the cards in front of them.

“Let us begin the game.”

* * *

**Sunday, August 27.  1:00 a.m.**

The subway platform was devoid of life, except for a few homeless looking for a respite from the summer night’s heat.  The soft click of heels on stairs drew their attention.  A woman came down, ruffling her auburn hair.  She stopped when she saw the homeless men sitting on a bench.  Sighing, she rifled in a pocket.  She offered them a wad of bills.

“Five bucks each if you get out of here.”

They took it and left without a word.

The woman sat on the bench, and waited.  She wiped her palms on her jeans.  Less than a minute later, a man came down the stairs and nodded to her.  She got up, and followed him behind a partition that separated the bathroom entrances from the rest of the platform.  For privacy.

“Did you get it to your publisher?”

She swallowed.  It should be routine by now.  He had been nothing but helpful, even if he did act in secrecy.  But tonight, was different.  Tonight, she carried a hundred tons on her back.  She nodded.  “Yeah.  I still need more, though.  What we have now isn’t convincing enough.”

The man she was meeting with nodded.  He was all wrapped up tight in his coat, his gloves, his hat, and a scarf.  He even wore sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night.  He didn’t want to be recognized.  No chances could be taken.  She knew that. 

“I’m doing everything I can.”  He sounded like he was trying to reassure her.  “But I’m worried about my safety, too.  Even with all the dirt I have on them, there’s been too many close calls.”

He slipped her a thick, manila envelope.

“Same as usual.  Don’t open it until you get home, burn it all when you’re done.”  She took it, nodding back to him.

“Good,” he said.  “This is good for both of us.  We expose them, put some terrible people away.  You can advance your career while doing it.  I can feel safe in my own home again.”  He straightened his coat.  “Okay.  That’s it.  Hopefully we can meet again soon.”  He started for the stairs, but she grabbed his sleeve.

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

She let go of the sleeve, looked down.  Could she really do this?  What would happen if she was right?  How would he react?  But there was this burning thing inside her, and it told her to hell with the consequences.  She needed to know.  She couldn’t continue without knowing the truth.

“It’s…”  She took off her glasses, wiped sweat from her brow.  “I’ve been doing a lot of digging on my own, and I found something.  And I need you to tell me, honestly, if it’s true.  I cannot keep doing this with you if this is.”  As the words flowed out of her mouth, she felt her confidence returning.  It was the same way she got whenever she interviewed someone, like a zen state, and she channeled that so that she’d spit it out.  The man’s mouth had a serious expression, though with the sunglasses, she couldn’t tell what his eyes were saying.  Was he anticipating what she would say next?  She couldn’t back out now.

“The shell corporations, the offshore accounts.  They all leave a faint trail.  And it’s all coming back around to you.”

His mouth twitched.  “What are you implying?”

Her breath hitched.  “Nothing.  About you, anyways.  It’s like the money’s being funneled out, shipped all around the world, then funneled back in.  You’ve got no reason to do that.  I think you’re being used.  Maybe that dirt you have on them, maybe it’s a two way street.  Think.  What’s the best place to hide something?”

He looked away, cursing.  “Right under my own damn nose.  Jesus Christ.  I can’t believe it.”  He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Okay.  That burner I gave you?  Get rid of it.  We can’t take even the smallest risk anymore, if they’ve been right on top of me this whole time.  I’ll find another way to contact you, once I’ve had time to think.”  He sounded scared.  “Do you think they even orchestrated this?  Our relationship?  Is this what they wanted, all along?”

She looked down.  It would be a lie to say she hadn’t considered the possibility. 

“I don’t know.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then started at the sound of a rumbling coming down the tracks.

“We’ll talk later.  You’re going to miss your train.”

She nodded, and turned to step onto the platform.

There was a pricking sensation on her neck.  Her instinctual thought was, “Mosquitos?  Here?”  But she turned her eyes to see the needle sticking out of her neck, held in place by a gloved hand.  As soon as the plunger couldn’t be pressed down anymore, the hands roughly spun her around, and she faced the man she knew was her killer.  She felt so sluggish, like she was walking through molasses in slow motion.  Her mind managed to pull out the thought that the drug was so fast acting as to be instantaneous, and also the that she had been such an incredible idiot to believe him.  He forced the empty syringe into one of her hands.  Then he pushed her off the platform.  She was so limp that the syringe tumbled out of her hand as she fell, leaving her behind.  She felt like she fell for such an incredibly long time.  The tracks weren’t that far away, but it still felt like it.  There was static in her head.

She had missed her train.

**Sunday, August 27.  9:00 a.m.**

“Detective’s here, Sergeant.”

New York Police Sergeant Natalie O’Neil thanked the other officer and turned away from the body, if it could even be called that anymore, walking towards the subway entrance to meet the detective.  He offered the hand not carrying coffee when he saw her.  They shook.

“Detective Harvey Miller.  Second grade.”  She wondered if his accent was average for a New Yorker, or if his just happened to sound that stereotypical.  “What’s it look like, Sergeant...?”

“O’Neil.  Her name was Audrey Burns.  Journalist for a local paper.  Looks to be either a suicide or an accident.”

“Why an accident?” 

O’Neil held up an evidence bag.  Inside, it contained an empty syringe.  Detective Miller ran his hand through his thinning hair.  “Christ.  This shit again?”

“Forensics say they’d have to get it to the lab to test it, but it’s likely.  And her prints are on it.”

“It’s a damn epidemic is what it is.”  The detective said.  He gulped his coffee.  “New drug hits the streets, suddenly it’s everywhere.  Absolutely nothing like we’ve seen before, not linked to any known opioids or amphetamines.  Practically instant effects.  You know why I was so late?  Cleaning up a damn shooting at a convenience store, the guys were on the same stuff.  First high makes ‘em go nuts.  Every high after that?  It’s like they turn into vegetables.”  He sighed, finally done venting.  “Okay.  Let’s see it.”

She walked him over to the edge of the platform.  He took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it down onto the dark tracks, illuminating the remains of a body.  If it could still be called that.  He made a face.

“You just transferred here, right?”

Sergeant O’Neil nodded.  “From Toronto.”

“Ever see anything like this in Toronto, Sergeant?”

She shook her head.  “No subways in Toronto.”

“I thought there were subways in Toronto.”

“You’re thinking of the Canadian one.”

Miller got a dark chuckle out of that.

“Yeah, well.  Welcome to the big city.”


	2. Mister Sandman

**Sunday, September 3.  12:04 p.m.**

Tires crunched over gravel as a silver SUV pulled to a stop in the university’s student parking lot.  Digging himself out of a small pile of candy wrappers, the young man leaped out of the car like a prisoner just released, wiping the sweat off his forehead that was coursing down from his brown hair.  Anyone would feel that way after five and a half hours straight of driving.  He could hear and feel the cracks in his spine as he twisted and stretched, trying to shake off the drowsiness that came with the long drive.  He resolved to take a nap as soon as he was set up in the dorm.  But before that, he had to head to the student office to get signed in.  At least, that’s what the crumpled checklist he’d pulled out of his pocket told him.  Even though she’d drilled it into him at least a hundred times before he left, his mom had to make sure to type it up.  Which, despite his complaints at the time, he guessed had ended up fair enough in the end.  He really did forget.  He flipped the checklist over, looking at the university’s map printed on the back.  Shielding the paper from the glare of the sun with his hand, he turned it once, twice, then finally found the proper orientation.  The entrance and front desk weren’t too far from where he’d parked, and he thanked God for that.  Like a lot of inner-city universities, the Eisner campus was pretty large.

Deciding he’d come back for his stuff after getting checked in, he headed towards the doors.  As he was walking, something fluttered by his face so closely and quickly that he whipped his hand in front of it instinctively.  Looking around, he saw that it was just a butterfly.  He’d thought it might be a hornet or something.  Weird, though, he’d never seen a butterfly quite like it.  It was a bright blue, and the sun shone through its translucent wings so that it gave the illusion of glowing.  Then again, he was no butterfly expert, so he shrugged it off and stepped through the doors.

Inside, he was met with a burst of blissfully cool air.  He took a couple steps forward.  Then looked around, spotted the front desk.  He walked up to it, and started to speak, but the lady held up a finger.  He hadn’t noticed she’d been talking into a headset, and he mouthed an apology to her.  He looked around again, but nothing much caught his interest.  Other students milled about, some walking, some sitting on the chairs scattered around the main entrance.  Eventually the lady finished her call, and told him she was ready.  He asked where the student office was, and she pointed to her left, telling him to head around a corner.  He nodded his thanks.

It was easy enough to spot once he knew where to go. It had ceiling to floor windows through which he could see everyone working inside the small office.  A sign on the door told him it was, indeed, the student office.  Another woman, older than the one he’d met at the front desk, spotted him and motioned him inside.

“New student?”  She asked, once he was inside.  He nodded.  She picked up a clipboard.  “Great, great.  What’s your name, sweetie.”

“It’s Rich, ma’am.”  He realized his awkward fumble.  “Uh, Richard Gibson.  Sorry, Rich is just what everyone calls me.”  She gave him a reassuring smile.

“Yup, here you are on the list.  Okay, Richard, the first thing we need to do is take a picture for your ID card.”  He nodded again, and for the first time noticed the camera sitting on a tripod nearby.  She pointed to a clear wall nearby.  “Stand there, please.”  Rich nodded, backing up against the wall.  He thought about doing something goofy for the picture, but figured she probably wouldn’t let him.  She was probably too busy to be dealing with that, anyways, so he just settled on a regular smile.  After the flash, the lady pressed a few buttons on the camera, then stepped over to a nearby machine that it was wired to.  It looked like some sort of big printed, and that’s exactly what it turned out to be, as in a few seconds it had spat out a fresh ID card with Rich’s picture and information on it.  She handed it to him, then looked at her clipboard again.

“Okay, next thing.  You’re in dorm… 2-B.  Ah, that’s right down-” she cut herself off, then peered through the office’s windows.  “Actually, there’s someone who can take you there.”

She stepped out of the office, and though he couldn’t quite hear her through the closed door and glass, it looked like she was calling someone.  Into view stepped another guy.  He looked to be about the same age, though that was more or less where the similarities ended.  His dark skin was a contrast to his, and though Rich liked to think he took decent care of himself, but this guy was clearly built much better.  And he was taller, too.  Rich assumed he was some sort of athlete.  The office lady talked to him for a minute, and motioned to Rich inside the office.  The guy smiled and waved, and Rich waved back.  Seemed friendly enough.  The he nodded to the office lady, and followed her back inside the office.

“Hey, man.  I’m Mark Howard.”  They shook hands, and Rich noticed that Mark’s was rough and slightly callused.

“Richard Gibson.  Or, uh, just Rich.”  He said back.

“Looks like we’re roomin’ together, Rich.  I’ll show you around, and help you carry any of your stuff if you need it.”

“Oh, hey, you don’t gotta do that-” but Mark waved it off. 

“C’mon man, we’re roomies.  ‘Sides, not like I got anything else going on.”  Rich shrugged.  He couldn’t turn him down if he insisted like that.  And he really could use the help.  The two walked back out to Rich’s SUV, at which Mark snickered.

“Nice ride.”

Rich shrugged.  “Used to belong to my parents.  They got something newer, then gave it to me when I got my license.”

“What year is that thing from, ninety-five?”

Rich rolled his eyes.  “It’s early thousands, okay?  It’s got electric windows and locks and air conditioning.  Good enough for me.”

Mark sighed.  “No style.  No style.”  He quit with the teasing, though, and helped Rich grab a few boxes from the trunk.  “Where you from, anyways?”

“Upstate.”  Rich said, slinging on a backpack and yanking a duffel bag out of the trunk.  “Transferred from a community college once I got my AA.” 

Mark nodded.  “Cool, cool.  Third year, then?”  He started walking.  “Dorm’s over here, by the way.”  Rich nodded, following him while they talked.

“Yeah.  Figured it was cheaper to transfer like this, and that whole four year experience thing, y’know, it wasn’t that big of a deal to me.”

“I hear ya.  Me, I needed scholarships and financial aid and all that to get in.  Didn’t want to deal with loans, though.  You know how that shit it is.”

They kept chatting all the way up to the dorm.  Things got quiet when Mark indicated they were on the second floor of the dorm building, and Rich had to set his duffel down to help Mark get one of the heavier boxes up the stairs.  Once he’d ran down to get his bag again, Mark showed him around the dorm area.

“Here’s the living area,” he said, once they were collected at the top of the stairs.  It wasn’t too small, just a little smaller than his living room at home, though the way it opened up into hallways at both ends made it look bigger.  There were a couple chairs and a couch surrounding a coffee table.  Against the wall was a flat screen on top of a faux-wooden TV stand.  He didn’t see anyone sitting around, but apparently someone had left the TV on some news channel.

“-investigating the drug known as ‘Pitch Black’ that’s been hitting New York streets since spring.  The drug is unprecedented in all areas: composition, spread, impact, and death toll.  It is, in fact, the drug with the most quickly rising death count in this nation’s history.  This includes the life of rising-star reporter Audrey Burns, who reportedly fell onto subway tracks after taking the drug and was killed by an oncoming train.”

Mark turned away from the screen as the newswoman went on to describe some of the drug’s gruesome effects.  Hallucinations, sudden insanity, a vegetative, apathetic state, and patches of skin turning black like some flesh-eating disease.  Rich blanched.

“Gross.  Never heard of anything like that.”

“It’s been all over the news.”  Mark said.  “No one knows what this stuff is, and it came outta nowhere.  They say it gets you hooked worse than crack, too.”

“Geez.”  Mark nodded.  That summed up both their thoughts on the matter.

“Forget about that stuff.  Our room’s just down the hall.”  They picked up the boxes and bags again, heading down to the left hallway.  As they went, Cody noticed that one of the rooms was already occupied.  Or at least, it seemed to be.  The door was closed, unlike all the other empty rooms, who had theirs open as an invitation to the new students.  He asked Mark who lived in it.  He shrugged.

“Dunno his name, but he’s kind of a shut-in.  Haven’t seen him come out since I got here, at least.  And I wasn’t in this dorm last year.”

“He doesn’t have a roommate?”

“Nah, that guy was lucky enough to get one of the singles.”

Rich muttered a soft ‘huh,’ but put it out of his mind.  The guy probably just liked privacy.  He didn’t have time to worry about it, anyways.  He had to get settled in.  The room looked pretty standard: a pair of beds in the far corners, two desks backed up to the walls next to them, and a closet on the wall closest to the door.  It was otherwise bare, but he hadn’t expected otherwise with no one living in it.

“Orientation’s at three, right?”  He asked.  “Think I’ll take a nap till we gotta go.  I drove for, like, five hours.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”  Mark said, turning to leave.

“Oh.”  Rich said, and Mark stopped in his tracks.  “Thanks for the help, man.  Turned two trips into one.”

“No problem.  Sweet dreams, now.”  Rich snorted.  Mark seemed like a nice enough guy.  Hell, he was already acting like they were friends.  He wondered if he was lucky, to have met someone like Mark so soon.  He hadn’t had any real friends at the community college, he just did what he needed to get his associate’s and move on.  Hadn’t joined any clubs, no real interest in sports or student government.  He still didn’t, really.  People always talked about the college experience during high school, but he never felt it.  He wondered if the sort of stuff he’d been told about and seen in TV and movies even happened.  Rich turned over, so that he was facedown in the pillow.  He was feeling too lazy to close the blinds.  Instead, he just closed his eyes.

* * *

Rich blinked.  Then he blinked again, to make sure he hadn’t gone blind.  No, everything around him was just dark.  Why was it dark, though?  Where was he?  A second ago, he had been in his dorm.  He’d just started getting unpacked, and… and what?  He couldn’t remember.  A jolt shot through his mind, like a migraine that lasted only a second, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose.  Opened his eyes again.  Now there was a light.  Faint at first, but it grew, like it was glowing closer.  It was in the shape of a rectangle, just under a foot taller than he was.  It reminded him of something.  He remembered quickly what that was: a door.  The silhouette of a door, with light poking through the cracks from the other side.  He realized that it was still getting closer to him.  Or was he getting closer to it?  What was happening?  He noticed that as the light grew, it faintly illuminated the floor.  White and black tiles, arranged in a zigzagging pattern.

Finally, the door stopped just in front of him, and he could make out the details.  It was a door like you’d see in an office building, though its dark blue color was weird.  Paneled wood, with a square, frosted window at eye level, a mail slot under the window.  There were words printed on the window.  In larger font: “Igor.”  Underneath the name: “Head Contractor.”  And underneath that: “Offices of Mr. P.”  The names were unfamiliar to Rich.  He reached for the doorknob, then hesitated.  Stepping into an unfamiliar office seemed like a bad idea.  Instead, he leaned in close to the door, tilting his head so that his ear faced it, but didn’t touch it.  He heard a tip-tapping sound, and realized it was something he had only heard in movies and TV shows.  The sound of a typewriter.  Besides that, there was static.  The typewriter stopped, then the static changed.  A bizarre collection of sounds, like voices cut off before they could even finish a syllable.  He recognized that sound, too.  A radio, being tuned.

“Next up; a classic song by a classic duo, but with a twist.”  Said a deep voice.  “This is ‘Aria of the Soul,’ by your favorites: Nameless and Belladonna, featuring the saxophone talents of Mute Meguro.  The man who speaks through music.”  The sound of a piano started up, and was quickly joined by piercing soprano vocals, and low, bluesy sax.  For a while, Rich simply stood there, listening.  The song was lilting, and slow, and a little sad.  Hypnotizing.  But he was broken out of his trance by another voice, and this time it wasn’t from the radio.

“Come in, come in.”  The voice said, with a chuckle.  “We can’t have you standing out there all day, can we?  After all, we’ve been expecting you.”

Rich hesitated for a second more.  Then he took a deep breath, and stepped inside.  The office’s interior was surprising in some ways, but completely normal in others.  All of the things expected of an office were there: a bookcase crammed with documents and binders stood in the right corner, next to it were filing cabinets, and framed certificates and shelves hung from the walls.  A ceiling fan spun lazily above him.  What was abnormal was the room’s singular color scheme.  Dark blue.  The walls were painted blue, the window drapes (from behind which, and without the door muffling sound, he could hear pouring rain) were blue, the elegant carpet covering most of the hardwood floor was blue, the filing cabinets and shelves and picture frames were blue.  Above the filing cabinets was a corkboard.  Newspaper clippings were tacked to it, with pieces of blue string connecting them.  Out of curiosity, Rich glanced at some of the headlines.  They looked like they were in another language, but he found that he could read them.  “Joker Killings Continue,” “Apathy Syndrome on the Rise,” “Detective Prince Apprehends Serial Killer,” “Phantom Thieves Strike Again.”  Rich didn’t recognize any of it, so his eyes wandered elsewhere. 

In the center of the room sat a large, ornate, mahogany desk.  It had that sort of organized clutter that only a dedicated person who used it regularly could create.  The music’s source, an old-timey radio made out of wood, with the curving, church-like arches for the speakers, sat on the front of the desk.  The typewriter he had heard earlier sat pushed to the side, next to a desk lamp with a blue glass shade, which cast a tinted light through the room.  And behind that desk, sat a very strange man.

He wore a simple black suit and white gloves, but that was the only simple, and normal, thing about him.  He was thin as a rail, and just as long.  Everything about him was thin and long.  His torso, his fingers, his… nose.  Holy hell, that nose.  And though Rich couldn’t see them beneath the desk, he knew his legs were much the same.  He was balding, tufts of gray hair falling off the back and sides of his head, though not covering his long, elfin ears.  The most striking thing about him though, even more striking than that footlong nose, were his eyes.  Those bulging, bloodshot eyes never stopped staring, like they had been peeled open.  Not even his eyebrows, which grew so long they poked off the sides of his temples, covered them.  It was like the man stared through him.  He had balanced his chin on his hands as if he wanted to make sure he was always giving Rich a sideways look, one eye pointed directly at him.  Combined with his permanently wide grin, it gave a disturbing impression.  By definition he looked human, but everything about this man was unnatural.  And yet, despite everything about his appearance, the man did not seem unfriendly.  His smile, though unnaturally wide and unending, didn’t hold any malice in it.

After a moment of that creepy staring, the man spoke.  His voice was a sliding, slithering sound; low, but at the same time, high.  At any moment, Rich expected him to rub his hands together and start saying ‘yesss, master,’ over and over.

“Welcome, young man.  My name is Igor.”  Rich glanced behind him.  If the name fits…

“Uh, right.  I saw that on the, uh, the door.”

He chuckled.  “Of course, of course.”  He spread his hands outward, his elbows still perched on the desk.  “Welcome to the Velvet Room.  This is a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter.  Only those who are bound, or soon to be bound, by a contract may enter this place.  Would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?”

“It’s Rich-Richard.”  He stuttered, realizing this was the third time today he’d almost introduced himself just by his nickname.  “Richard Gibson.”

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Richard.”  Igor turned his head to his right, gesturing with his hand, “This is my assistant, Olga.”

Rich turned, and started in surprise.  There was a plush couch lined with velvet backed up against the wall, and on it sat a woman.  Had she been there this entire time?  Her skin was pale, and her hair a shimmering platinum blonde.  This was contrasted by her dark blue lipstick.  The rest of her face was a mystery, as she wore a wide-brimmed hat with a veil hanging from the brim, which hid everything from the nose up.  The veil, hat, and the fabric flowers that decorated it were the same dark blue color as her lipstick.  As was her slinky dress, which left little to the imagination.  Shapely didn’t even begin to describe her, and Rich tried not to look at the amount of thigh revealed by her crossed legs and slit dress.  In her hand was one of those thin sticks that held cigarettes, and she took a drag from it.

“Yes.  A pleasure,” was all she said, but he could hear the slight eastern European accent in her voice.  She made an “O” with her mouth, and puffed a ring of smoke at him.  Rich gave a small wave of his hand, dissipating the smoke before it hit his face.  He didn’t want to end up with a coughing fit making his face more red than it already was.  He went for a nervous laugh instead.

“I get it.  Okay.  This is a dream, right?  It can’t be anything else.  Yeah, yeah, I had just fallen asleep, I remember.”

Igor steepled his hands.  “Indeed.  Your body sleeps elsewhere, but your mind has been transported to this realm so that we might meet.”

“That sounds like something a dream would say.”

The strange man chuckled again.  “I suppose it does, doesn’t it?”  Then his voice grew darker.  “But we must move on to more serious matters.  Please, have a seat.”  He gestured towards a chair sitting in front of his desk.  Like Olga’s couch, it was backed with plush velvet.  With no other choice but to wait out the dream, Rich sat.

“I am afraid that, like many who visit here, you will soon experience a time of great hardship.  There is no avoiding this.  The cards have revealed it to me.”

Rich tilted his head.  “The, uh, the cards?”

Igor opened a drawer on on the left side of his desk, and pulled out a deck of cards.  He shuffled them from one hand to another.  Rich was no expert in matters of the occult, but even he could recognize a tarot deck.  He couldn’t help but roll his eyes, resting his cheek on the palm of his hand.  “My dream is going to read me my fortune?”

“It has already been read, and I must unfortunately inform you of your rather unfortunate situation.”  He sure seemed to smile a lot for a guy delivering bad news, Rich thought.  “Your card, The Fool, has been revealed in the reverse position.”  Igor stopped shuffling the cards, took them in both hands, and fanned them outwards.  Plucking the one in the middle, he placed it on the desk where Rich could see.  A man in a medieval jester’s outfit, funny hat and all, carried a sack over his shoulder.  The man on the card was looking up towards the sky, but appeared to be walking towards the edge of a cliff.  It was like he didn’t notice his own imminent death.  Behind him, a dog nipped at his heels, as if trying to pull him back from the cliff.  Though the card was upside down, its name was easy enough to read: It was indeed The Fool.

“What does it mean?”

“The Arcana is the means by which all is revealed.  Even the nature of oneself.  Your card, The Fool, is both the first and last of the major Arcana,” Igor explained.  “Normally, it represents the beginning of a journey.  Notice how it bears the number zero?  Zero is a special number.  It is nothing, but at the same time, it has the potential to be anything.  That is The Fool, Richard.  Pure potential.”  Richard started feeling nervous, and sat up straighter.  If that was what The Fool normally meant, then if it was upside down…

“If The Fool is reversed, then it means the path to your new beginning has been blocked.  Or, more aptly, it has been hidden.  You are stuck where you are, directionless.  Like a ship, lost in a storm without its rudder.”  He pulled out another card, laying it horizontally on top of The Fool.  “I can tell that your fate is closely linked to The Hanged Man.”

The picture on the card wasn’t as gruesome as Rich expected.  Rather than by his neck, the man depicted in the picture was hanging upside down by rope tied around his left ankle.  His arms were tied behind his back, and his right leg hung crooked at the knee, bending behind his left leg so that his entire body made the shape of the number four.  Though the number on the card was actually twelve, so Rich had no idea why the man on the card made the shape of another number.

“The Hanged Man represents reflection, observance, and finding new perspectives.”  Rich guessed that was why the man was upside down.  “The Hanged Man is suspended between heaven and earth, head towards the ground; a paradox.  He sacrifices parts of himself to attain knowledge.  The Hanged Man will be a challenge for you to overcome.”  Igor placed a third card to the right of the two cards.

This one was pretty straightforward: a skeleton in armor riding upon a white horse, carrying a flag emblazoned with a white flower and displaying the roman numeral XIII.  Around it were what appeared to be bodies of all classes; king and commoner alike.  Richard didn’t have much trouble figuring out the meaning of that one.

“In your immediate future: Death.”  Igor must have noticed the look on his face, because he chuckled again.  “Do not be afraid.  Death does not always represent a literal, physical death.  Rather, it indicates a change, a transition from one stage of life to another.  Change is inevitable, but the manner of change is for you to decide.”

Igor placed the deck on his desk, and placed his hands together once again.

“However, that does not mean you are safe.  As I said, a time of great hardship is before you.  If you continue on your current path, you are in great danger of disappearing from this world entirely.

Rich leaned forward, cupping his chin in his hands.  “I don’t get it.  How can I ‘disappear’ from this world?”

“You shall learn soon,” Igor said.  “But I will tell you that this fate can be avoided.”

Rich shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  His dreams were telling him he was in for trouble, and he didn’t like what that implied about his psyche.  “Okay, how?”

“You must seek to return The Fool to its upright position.  Choices will be thrust upon you, very difficult choices indeed, but you cannot avoid them.  You must take responsibility, and make the choice that is true to yourself.  Only upon doing this will your contract be forged, and you may return here.  Otherwise, you will most certainly disappear.”

There was a buzzing in his head, and it felt like it had suddenly been stuffed with cotton.  Rich gripped his forehead.  “I don’t understand.”

“You will, in due time.  That much I can assure you.”  The cards disappeared from Igor’s desk with a soft blue glow.  “For now, you must return to your physical body.  If you return here, we will further discuss the nature of our relationship.”

Rich was about to tell Igor to wait and explain further, to not leave him hanging like this.  The radio cut to static.  His vision blurred.  There was a ringing in his ears.

The last thing in Rich’s vision were Igor’s piercing eyes.

“Remember, Richard.  You must choose.”

* * *

Rich blinked.  He was back in the dorm.  And laying face up now.  The ringing had vacated his ears and moved into his phone.  Right, he’d set an alarm.  The orientation would start in a half hour.

Already, the details of his dream were growing foggy in his mind.  Something about danger, disappearing… a long nose… what had his mind been trying to tell him?  He shook his head.

He decided that this was why he wasn’t going for a psychology degree.


	3. Words I Manifest

**Sunday, September 3. 3:05 p.m.**

Rich met up with Mark in the dorm’s living area after he woke up. Not knowing the way to the auditorium where orientation was being helped, Mark agreed to show him around again. As it turned out, the auditorium was pretty close: the arts center was the closest to their dorm, and that included theater. The inside of the building matched the aesthetic layout sense of the main one, for the most part. The foyer was sort of like a very wide L-shape, like another building had intruded into one side of the one they were in. It would’ve looked more standard, if it weren’t for the walls being entirely covered in art pieces. Paintings and drawings of all kinds, theater posters and photographs of the performers on stage. A couple sculptures were backed against the walls, too. The main attraction, however, was a gigantic painting hanging from the ceiling by wires hooked onto its large, sturdy frame. As for the painting itself, Rich wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it. It depicted dark, swirling vortex. Above it, or rather, closer to the perspective of the viewer, were shards of what Rich could only guess was glass, reflecting bright light that must have been coming from some outside source. He had no idea what it was supposed to mean.

Mark noticed what Rich was staring at. “Angst.”

“Huh?”

“That’s the name of the painting.”

If anything, this just confused Rich more. “What does it mean?”

“Hell if I know.” Mark shrugged. “It was donated by an alumni. They say he became pretty big in the art world after graduating. But he killed himself, just after donating the painting. At least, that’s just what I heard.” He kept staring at the painting. “Guess you never really know what’s goin’ on with those artsy types. Oh, but uh, we shouldn’t be distracted by this creepy thing. The orientation’s about to start. C’mon, it’s just this way.”

Mark pointed out the auditorium doors on the other side of the room, where that intrusion was. With the general knowledge of what a theater looked like, the layout of the building started to make more sense. It was more like it was all one big room, with walls to separate the foyer and auditorium. With Mark by his side, Rich made to open the doors, but just before he grabbed onto the handle they burst open. One of the doors slammed right into Mark’s face. Out stormed a girl. She was short, barely five foot even, black hair, tank top, jeans. Rich didn’t get a good look at much else, but something did strike him: her eyes had heavy, dark bags, but they were also puffy and red. Like she’d been crying. The girl didn’t even seem to notice the two as she huffed by them, only muttering something about a “stupid, spineless dean” and something about being forced to write something else? Rich didn’t know what to make of any of it. Then he remembered that Mark had just suffered a fatal injury. He peeled the door off his face.

“You ok?”

Mark was clutching his nose, though luckily it didn’t seem to be bleeding. “What the yelled?!” He yelled, his throbbing nose affecting his speech. “My nose!”

Rich looked back out of his shoulder just in time to see the girl exit the building.

“Who was that?” Mark stared after her, a stormy expression crossing his eyes.

“How should I know?! I was the one with a doo in my face! Fucking…” He rubbed his nose, checking for injury.

“Maybe we should just head in. It doesn’t look like it’s broken.” Rich said. Mark agreed, but not without grumbling, and they found a seat. Rich wondered why Mark was actually here, though. He wasn’t new here, why would he care about orientation? Not that Mark showing him around wasn’t appreciated, but why sit through the whole thing? He must have had other stuff going on. He was going to ask about it, but was interrupted when someone on his left, who he hadn’t even noticed, grabbed his attention.

“Rich? Richard Gibson?”

He was younger than Rich, maybe by a couple years. Dark hair that he didn’t seem to bother to cut very often, as it was long at the neck and a fringe covered his left eye. He was pale, like he didn’t get out much, and despite the end of summer heat, was wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

“Sorry, do I know you?” Rich asked.

“Yeah, man. It’s me, Kyle Dixon? From high school.”

Rich thought about it for a moment, studying Kyle’s face. Then he snapped his fingers.

“Oh. Oh, Kyle! Man, I didn’t recognize you!”

Kyle rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s okay. I know we didn’t exactly hang out much.”

It was true. Kyle had been a couple years below Rich, a sophomore while he was a senior. Every grade had their own groups, and they didn’t interact much with the ones above or below. But Rich did remember him being in a couple elective classes that were shared between grades. Kyle had always been the quiet kid, and even back then he had that sort of “emo” look. Or at least, that’s what everyone called it back then. That quietness made him stand out in his own way. But he’d always seemed like an alright guy. Rich offered a handshake, but Kyle wiped his hands on his jeans instead.

“Sorry, my palms. They’re all, uh, y’know. Sweaty. It’s gross.” Rich put his hand down.

“Right, sure. Crazy we’d end up at the same college. What’ve you been up to the past couple of years?”

“Well, you know…”

There was a tapping on the microphone at the stage. A conservatively dressed woman talked into it.

“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming on a weekend. This year’s orientation will now begin. Please give a warm welcome to our dean of student affairs: Doctor Miles Finger.” Polite clapping for a few seconds, before the dean raised his hands to call for silence.

“Thank you all again for being here,” he said into the microphone. He wiped his balding forehead with a pocket handkerchief. “It’s good to see so many bright, new faces at our college, and I have made it my personal goal this year to meet with each and every one of you to make sure your transition into university life is a smooth one. As we look ahead to the future…”

And it continued like that for a while. Rich knew a standard school welcome speech when he heard one, and he guessed that was one thing that didn’t change no matter what kind of school you went to. He tuned out somewhere between “provide ample opportunity for future careers” and “variety of clubs and extracurriculars.” Instead, his thoughts turned back to the strange dream he had earlier. The whole thing was still fuzzy in his mind, but he remembered that it had felt so real. The bizarre forms of Igor, and that beautiful woman, Olga, were one thing he couldn’t forget, at least. And he remembered saying something about how he thought it was a dream. He remembered reading something about how, if you realize you’re dreaming, you can control it. But he hadn’t felt any control while in the Velvet Room. And they had told him he was in danger, in danger of “disappearing.” What did that mean? Rationally, Rich knew he shouldn’t be taking a dream so seriously. But something about it just kept nagging at his mind.

“-hand it over to your student government president, Margo Mazzucchelli.”

A derisive snort from Mark brought Rich out of his thoughts, and caught Kyle’s attention as well. They both gave him quizzical looks.

“I guess you guys wouldn’t know, but there’s a lotta rumors about that girl.”

“Rumors?” Kyle stammered. “W-what kind of rumors?” Mark rubbed his neck. He looked embarrassed for having brought it up.

“Well, you know, they say she’s…” He grasped for the right words. He seemed to settle on just being blunt. “A mafia daughter.”  
Kyle gulped. “M-mafia?!” Mark whipped his head around, then shushed Kyle.

“Not so loud, man. It’s just a rumor. But they say that’s why she’s Miss Perfect. Does great in sports, does great in class, prez for two years straight. People say that, and this ain’t comin’ from me and I ain’t sayin’ it’s true, that all the teachers are scared of what her dad’ll do if she isn’t given, y’know, special treatment.”

“Man, the mafia…” Kyle huffed a breath. “I thought they got rid of all those guys in, like, the nineties or something.”

Mark shrugged. “Those guys’ve been here since forever, y’know? I mean, I don’t really know shit about this stuff, but can you really totally get rid of that kind of thing?”

“I guess not...”

Rich didn’t really know what to say. How do you even respond to the allegations that the student government president might be involved with the mob? She didn’t really look like someone who would be involved with the mafia. The image Rich had in his mind was the stereotypical one: grizzled criminals with accents and pinstripe suits who had secret meetings in fancy restaurants. He couldn’t get the best look at her from his seat near the back of the auditorium, but Rich could tell that Margo was pretty, but in normal person way, not a movie femme fatale way. No, his mind reminded him, that image belonged to the woman from his dream. Her chocolate hair fell around her face in soft waves. In fact, everything about her looked soft. Her cheeks, her lips, her deep, brown eyes. Her smile. Yeah, pretty was the right word. By this point, Rich had lost any interesting in what she was actually saying. It looked like she was finishing up anyways.

“-that tomorrow is Labor Day, so you guys have a full day to get all settled in before classes start. And that’s it! I hope everyone has a great stay here! Welcome to Eisner University!” She gave a little wave of her hands to punctuate the welcome. More polite clapping from the audience, this time with a few more enthusiastic cheers.

The applause was quickly overpowered by shrieking. Someone at the front of the audience was screaming bloody murder. No one moved. There was no immediate panic. No one really knew what was going on. Not until the screaming person leaped from her seat and ran up to the stage. Snarling like an animal, she attempted to crawl up onto the stage. The student president backed up in fear, covering her mouth with her hands. The shrieking girl finally got up on the stage, and Rich could finally see her, at least from the back. Her arms were covered in black splotches. By this time, the crowd was on its feet, and Rich couldn’t get a good look at the crazy, screaming girl. But he had seen Margo’s expression, and whatever she did see must’ve terrified her. All around them, administrators called for the crowd to not panic, but it was too late. Everyone was running for the doors, tripping over chairs and themselves. Buffeted by the tide of the crowd, Rich lost sight of Mark and Kyle, and was eventually carried towards the exit. Deciding it was better to go with the flow then get hurt fighting it, Rich made his way out of the theater. Outside, he still couldn’t spot the other two, and with faculty yelling at everyone to return to their dorms, he figured it would probably better to just go back and wait.

The site of the girl’s spotted skin stuck with him all the way back. He remembered the news report from earlier; about that new drug. Black spots on the skin. That was one of its effects. It had just seemed gross and weird on TV, but now, now it was very real. This stuff killed people, and one of the students at his own university was on it. Maybe more. What had Mark said? That it was easier to get hooked on than crack.

Rich crossed his arms over his chest. Despite the summer warmth, he suddenly felt very cold.


	4. Don't Bother None

**Sunday, September 3.  4:32 p.m.**

It took Richard a while to notice that he’d been so deep in thought that he’d walked way past his dorm, and he had jog back to make sure he got back before five.  Inside the living area, he found Mark sitting on one of the couches, chin resting on his hands.  He stood up when he saw Rich, looking relieved.  

“You okay, man?”  Rich nodded.

“What about Kyle?”

“Saw him on my way back,” Mark said.  “He’s on a different floor.”

Rich nodded.  “Good.”  He sat down heavily on the couch next to Mark.

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

A long pause.

“Did you see her?”

“Didn’t get a good look at her, but-”

“Did you see it, though?”

“Her skin?  Yeah, I saw it.”  

Mark let out a long breath.

“Jesus,” he said again.  He seemed a lot more shaken up about it then Rich did.  They didn’t talk again for a while after that.

**Sunday, September 3.  4:46 p.m.**

“You told me this wouldn’t happen.”

A man sat at a desk in an office.  The office was rather spartan, except for the standard file cabinets, bookcase, and framed certificates decorating the walls, which were painted an olive green.  

The man sitting at the desk gripped his cell phone tightly.

“You told me.  That this wouldn’t happen.”

He frowned deeper, and lines etched themselves into his forehead.

“‘Don’t take that tone with me?’  That’s what you have to say?”  He was raising his voice now.  “Remember that you are the one who promised me this wouldn’t happen!  That there would be measures to prevent this!  Because now it’s out in the open, and that is just as much a problem for you as it is for me!”  He took a breath.

“Off.  Campus.  Only in the area around it.  That is what you promised me.”

As he listened to the voice on the other side of the phone, he pulled open a desk drawer with his other hand.  He took out a small bottle of whiskey, twisted the cap with one hand, and took a swig.

“No no no.”  He said, once the voice was done.  “You don’t get to turn this around on me.  Yes, I am well aware of the terms of our deal.  Yes, I am well aware of how close it got to her.”

He was loud again, shouting now.  

“But none of this would have happened if you did your fucking job!”

There was a pause.  The voice started talking again.  It wasn’t shouting like the man in the office, but it was very, very farm.  Every word cowed the man, and he sunk deeper and deeper into his cushioned desk chair.

“You wouldn’t.”  He said, weakly.  “You’d be making yourself vulnerable, too.”

Evidently, the voice disagreed.

“Alright,” the man in the office said, his voice now little more than a whisper.  “Alright, I’ll handle it.”

The voice hung up, and the man in the office slumped forward onto his desk.  He decided that he should finish off the rest of the bottle.

**Sunday, September 3.  5:02 p.m.**

The short girl with puffy eyes stared at the older man from across the plastic table.  They sat on opposite ends.  She toyed with one of her studded bracelets.  He sat motionless, hands folded on the table.  Jack Park, the illustrious professor of journalism, advisor of the multiple award winning college paper “The Eisner Investigator.”  

Once, her second greatest mentor.  

Currently, her worst enemy.

“Why do you do this to me?”  She asked.

“Do what?”  He replied, in the most annoying, faux-innocent voice possible.  He toyed with the old class ring on his finger.  She gripped her bracelet tight, pretending it was his neck.  It helped with stress.

“You know.  You know I don’t want to be involved with this.  I can’t.”

Park sighed.  “You’re not giving yourself enough credit.  You’re stronger than that.”

“Says who?  You?  You don’t know that.”

He sighed again.  Changed gears.

“Did you hear about what happened?”

She nodded.

“And you weren’t there to cover it.  No notes, no pictures.  We had no one else.”

“I told you.”  She growled.  “I told you.  I cannot do this.”

He stroked his short beard.  She hated it when he did that, because it meant he was thinking of a way to convince her, and he almost always did.  Not anymore, though.

“Naomi, we’ve worked together for over a year, now.  And I mean ‘worked together’ sincerely.  I am not in charge here, I am not your boss.  I am your advisor.  I am here to guide you.”

Park stood up, and began pacing back and forth in front of the table.

“I know what you’re going through.”

“No, you don’t.”

His head whipped back toward her, and Naomi thought that this was the first time she had seen anger in his expression.  But it was quickly replaced with genuine sadness.

“Yes, I do.  You weren’t the only person who cared about her.  She was,” his breath hitched for a moment, but he continued.  “She was like a daughter to me.  All those years.  All that work.  We did so much together, we,”  he closed his eyes.  “So, yes, I do understand what you’re going through.  What we are all, going through.”

Park sat back down, composed himself, looked at Naomi seriously.

“But that’s the job.  We die.  We disappear.  We commit-”

“Don’t say it.”  Naomi cut him off.  “Don’t you dare say it.  That is not what ha-”

It was Park’s turn to interrupt her.  “It isn’t?  Then find out what really happened.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t answer.

“You’re scared."

“I’m what?”  She was angry now.  Park thought that was good.  She was much better when she was angry.

“You’re scared it’ll happen to you, too.  And you’re grieving.  That’s natural.  We’re not machines, Naomi.  But we push past that.  The fear.  The sadness.  We lock it up in a little box in our heads where it can’t get out until we can afford to let it out.  And then we do the job.  Listen,”  He took off his glasses, laid them on the table.

“You know how I know that you’re stronger than this fear?  Because I’ve seen you in action.  That passion.  That righteous anger.  That rabid curiosity.  You’ve got the guts.  We both know there’s something going on at this school and we both know that it is something bad.  We need to get back to work.  If we don’t, no one else will.”

Naomi jumped to her feat, the folding chair knocked back and collapsing backwards.  She slammed her hands on the table and leaned on them.

“Do not give me this bullshit.  About duty.  About my ‘passion.’”  Her hands curled into fists on the table.  “Because I am done.  You have pushed, and pushed, and you know what Park?  You pushed too fucking hard today.  I’m done.”  

Naomi stormed out of the office’s meeting room.

Alone with himself, Jack Park put his head in his hands.

**Sunday, September 3.  6:00 p.m.**

Margo hadn’t even made it to her room when she made it to the girls’ dorms.  Instead, she just sat on the couch in the common area, knees pulled up to her chest.  She was staring at the box of tissues on the coffee table.

By now, word had spread across the entire campus, everyone know what had happened.  A couple of people had tried to comfort her, but most had awkwardly ignored her.  Her friend, Lana, was in the former category.  She sat next to her on the couch, rubbing her back.

“You’re sure you’re going to be okay?”  She asked, her brows screwed up in concern.  Margo nodded.

“I think so.  It’s just, she was...”  Margo looked away from Lana.  She couldn’t even begin to describe what seeing that poor girl had been like.  Her twisted expression, the spittle flying from her mouth as she screamed, the black splotches coating her arms.  She couldn’t help but wonder how no one had noticed that something was wrong at her, why no one had said anything.  People said the drug made its victims go crazy, but to Margo, the girl looked more like she was in pain.  It had reminded her of animals that went feral after being wounded.

Lana stopped rubbing Margo’s back, pulling her in closer for a side hug.  Her auburn hair tickled her shoulders as she did.  “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it.  It must’ve been… terrifying.”

Margo nodded.  What could she even tell Lana?  How could she even begin to describe the fear, and worst of all, the guilt she had felt at seeing that poor girl?

She wasn’t stupid.  She knew no one really took student government seriously.  They set came up with dumb events, requested budgets, and shoddily threw them together.  That’s all most people saw.  But Margo cared.  She knew it wasn’t that much, in the end, but she wanted to find some way to help people.  She wanted to make up for things.

She heard someone walk by them.  It was another dormmate.  Margo recognized her because of her height, over six feet, and distinctive hairstyle; a blonde pomp, fairly short in the back for a girl, but long enough strands falling about her neck.  Margo had never seen anything like it in real life, mostly in old movies from the eighties.  The blonde stopped to look at her for a few seconds, grunted something quietly enough that she couldn’t hear, and walked into the kitchen.  She had always been quiet.  But it occurred to Margo that was all she knew about her.  She couldn’t even remember her name.  A fresh wave of guilt poured over her.  She hadn’t known that poor girl’s name either.  And she realized what an utter failure that made her.

**Sunday, September 3.  6:30 p.m.**

There had been a lot of reports to write since Sergeant O’Neil had transferred to the NYPD.  She’d had to deal with several more cases regarding Pitch Black, all while trying to get up to speed with the situation as it was even before she had arrived, on top of whatever normal crime had come her way.  Exhaustion was, unfortunately, the least of her worries.  She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes.  The paperwork on her dusk was starting to blur into gibberish.  She was trying not to think that transferring to New York might have been a bad idea, but it’s not like she had many other choices.  With nothing to focus on, the noise around her she usually ignored came to the forefront.  

“...sold out her own partner...”

“...worked real hard to ‘earn’ the promotion, if you know what i mean…”

Different office, same old gossip.  No matter where she went, the rumors stayed the same, and she always ended up adding new ones to the list.  Her age, her gender, how fast she’d been promoted to Sergeant, all were sometimes sources of scorn among her fellow officers.  If not one, then multiple, or all.  At this point, she had resigned herself to ignoring it and just doing her work as best as she could despite the circumstances.  She didn’t need to be a member of their club.

The sound of a paper coffee cup plopping onto her desk brought O’Neil back to reality.  Detective Miller was standing next to her desk, holding a cup of his own.  He was wearing his usual half-smile.  As it had turned out, much of the reason he’d been in the subway that day a week ago was because he had been assigned as her partner.

“Long day.”  He said.  It wasn’t a question.

“Wouldn’t know.”  She retorted.  “Feels like I’ve never had a short one.”

He snorted at that.  Miller, at least, seemed friendly enough.  From what little she had gathered during their few casual conversations, he’d been a member of the force going on 30 years, since before Giuliani’s big cleanup in the nineties.  He was as old school as it still got.  But he had surprised her, at least in comparison to some of their coworkers.  Any illusions she’d held about his age and attitudes had been shattered by him being nothing but helpful, if foul-mouthed and blunt.  At the very least, he had the tact to not talk about her where she could hear.

O’Neil sat up straight in her chair again, strands of ginger hair falling in front of her face, and gratefully nodded to him.  They both took it black.

“You hear about what happened?”  Miller asked.  She immediately knew what he was talking about, and nodded between gulps of coffee.

Pitch Black had spread incredibly fast.  Unnaturally fast.  It was like every dealer had somehow gotten their hands on it at once, but none that had been taken in would or could give anything on the supplier.  Whoever it was worked in meticulous secrecy, always moving behind multiple proxies and middle-men.  The drug itself really was unlike anything that had been seen before: a liquid of unknown chemical makeup, it could be injected, snorted, mixed into drinks, even rubbed into the skin, and no matter what it would have the same potency and work just as fast.  And now it had moved from the homeless and junkies, the usual suspects, showing up at parties held by the rich and famous like some designer drug, and now was in the hands of young people, like that college on Staten just today.  O’Neil couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could fall into the habit, when she hadn’t so much as touched a cigarette in her entire life.  Or rather, she knew why, the economic and psychological reasoning, but it seemed so far away from her.  So stupid.  She knew it was a bad attitude to have, and tried to push those kinds of feelings away.  Meanwhile, Miller had continued the conversation solo.

“Just kids.  Fuckin’ kids.  Y’know, I’ve seen a lot of shit done to kids.”  His voice was tinged with resigned sadness.  “It’s the one thing I can never abide.  When I collar the scumbags that did this…”  He was making gripping motions with his hands, and O’Neil shot him a look.  He moved his hand to tug on his collar.  The offices got hot despite any air conditioning.

“...I’ll toss ‘em into the box.  Of course.”  He didn’t sound too sincere, and she gave him a small smile.  It wasn’t that sincere, either.

“I feel the same way.  Trust me.”

“My ex always said I had to work on ‘constructive ways to vent my anger,’ anyways.”

“Which one was that?”

“Second one.  Psychologist.  Take it from me, never date someone who knows what’s goin’ on in your head.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

**Sunday, September 3.  7:05 p.m.**

He had tried watching TV for a while, but that incident was everywhere, and he really didn’t want to think about it.  Mark wasn’t in much of a talking mood, either, and he hadn’t exactly felt like meeting his other dormmates just yet.  There was a pressure covering the whole campus, like it had all been draped in one giant blanket.

He’d tried taking another nap, too, but every time he closed his eyes he got visions of an incredibly long nose.

With nothing else to do, Richard had started unpacking.  It hadn’t really hit him when he’d packed everything, but he didn’t have a lot of personal stuff he wanted to take.  Just a handful of small mementos and pictures from friends and family he could put on his desk.  Everything else was supplies, clothes, and bedding.  The unpacking went by quickly, and finally he got to the box where he kept electronics last.  

“All the useful stuff is in the last one...”  He muttered to himself, dropping his laptop and a charger for his phone on his desk.  At least now he could get on the internet, and find a way to distract himself from the shitty day he’d had so far.  

“So much for that enriching university experience.”

He flipped open the laptop open, but he didn’t even have time to do anything before his phone started ringing.  He fumbled it out of his pocket, dropped it, cursed, picked it up, and managed to answer on the last ring.  Immediately, his ear was pierced by the voice of his mom.  He held the phone away.

“It was all over the news!”  She wailed.  “I can’t believe it!  On your first day!  Are you okay, nothing happened to you, right?”

“Jesu-” he faked a cough, “Geez, mom, yeah, I’m fine.”

“I was just so worried when you didn’t pick up.”

Rich quickly glanced at his phone’s home screen.  No missed calls.

“But I did pick up.”

“But not until the last ring!”

He was glad she couldn’t see him rolling his eyes.

“Look, I’m fine.  I promise.  That girl wasn’t even anywhere near me.  I mean, the panic was crazy, but-”

“You weren’t hurt by all those people, were you?  Not trampled?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.  “No, mom, I wasn’t… trampled.  I wasn’t trampled.  I’m okay.”

“That’s good.  I just wanted to hear your voice, you know, make sure you’re okay.”

“Well, I am okay.  Uh, look, mom.  I gotta go.  Finish unpacking.”

“Of course!  You better get back to it.  But be sure to give me a call later, okay?”

He often wondered if his mom forget that he was twenty years old.

“Yeah, sure thing mom.  I promise.”

“Okay, sweetie!  Tee-tee-eff-enn!  Ta ta for now!”  Then she hung up.

“‘Ta ta for now?’”

Mark was leaning against the doorway, with the dumbest smile on his face.  Rich really did feel a headache coming on, now.  The second within hours.

“Heard that, huh?”  

“I think the whole dorm heard that lady.”

He sighed.  “It’s from, you know, that old cartoon.  Me and my mom would watch it all the time when I was, like, ten.”

“That’s adorable.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean it, man.  Your mom loves you so much.”

“I’m done with this conversation.”

Grabbing a plastic bag full of toiletries to use as an excuse to get out of there, Rich got up and walked out of the room past Mark.  The bathroom was the one their whole wing would have to share, and he could already imagine the long mornings of waiting in line to use it.  At least there were small cubbies attached to the right wall that could be labeled so that everyone know what belonged to who.  Pulling out a pen, Rich wrote his name on one of the stripes of tape stuck to the rim of a cubby and put his name on it.  Just to his right was the sink.  To his left, outcropping next to the door, was the shower.  At least it was fairly roomy.  On the far end, next to the shower, was a full body mirror stuck to the wall.  It created a weird illusion where he could see infinite reflections, since the mirror above the sink also showed up in it.

It was one of those things the brain had a hard time understanding, and Rich found himself staring into it for some time.  He stared at the infinite images of himself reflected in the mirrors.  It was like a line of clones standing in an infinitely long hallway.  He blinked.  The rest of the hims blinked.  Except that one, third down, with the yellow eyes?  Rich jumped in surprise, dropping his stuff.  Mark poked his head in the bathroom.

“What, drop your stuff?”

Rich blinked again.  All of the reflections were normal again.

“Uh, no, just - it’s stupid.  Thought I saw something in the mirror.”

“Y’know, I think I read something about that.”

“Oh yeah?”

Mark leaned against the doorframe.  He seemed to do that a lot.  Maybe he thought it made him look cool.

“If you stare into one for a long time, you start seeing weird stuff.  It’s like, our brains don’t totally get reflections, or something.”

“Very scientific sounding.”

Mark snorted.  “Anyways.  That’s where they think that Bloody Mary legend came from.”

“Bloody Mary.  Huh.”

Concerns lifted, Mark left the doorway, and Rich could hear the TV turning on in the living area.  Rich picked up his bag, and tossed it into his cubby.  

Something moved in the corner of his eye.  Rich looked to his left.  Nothing.  Just the mirror.  He walked up to it.  Mark had said it was just an optical illusion, but something felt off.  If it was just an illusion, why did he feel like he was being watched?

Rich looked at the large mirror.  Then he reached out and touched it.  The him in the mirror did the same thing.  He kept staring.  Nothing in the mirror was unusual.  But he kept looking, because he just wanted to be sure.  Sure that there was nothing in the mirror.  Nothing in the mirror.  Nothing.

His eyes felt heavy.  He realized too late that he’d been supporting his entire weight on the palm that was flat against the mirror.  The mirror rippled like water.  His hand slipped, and he fell.  

Into the mirror.


	5. Der Doppelgänger

**Unknown.**

The tiles Richard’s face rested on were ice cold, and that shocked him awake.  He groaned, pushed his hands hands beneath him, pulled up his knees, and sat there, on all fours.  The tiles beneath him tilted and blurred, and he felt nausea welling up from the pit of his stomach.  He sat there, breathing deeply, trying to ride out the sickening feeling.  Eventually, it faded enough that he felt confident in his ability to stand, and he pushed himself up.  Looking around, he realized he was in a bathroom.  Not the one in his dorm, though.  This one was more like a public restroom.  The walls covered with scratches and secret messages, the metal sink with multiple faucets in front of him, the multiple stalls to his left which, strangely, were without doors.  It was only then that Richard caught a whiff of the smell and realized he’d been out face first on a disgusting bathroom floor.  The nausea came roaring back, and he hurled his guts out in the nearest stall.

He got up from his knees after catching his breath, and flushed.  But instead of draining his lunch, the toilet instead overflowed, spilling it all out on the floor.  Rich backed up quickly so he wouldn’t step in it, cursing in disgust.  He had no idea where he was, he’d just puked, and now the toilet was spitting that puke back out of him.  He realized that he should probably be freaking out, but he wasn’t.  He felt worryingly calm, in fact.  More frustrated and annoyed than anything.  Maybe he was just in shock.  Not thinking about it too much was probably the best thing to do, because then he really would start freaking out, and that wouldn’t do much to help.

He walked over to the sink, the taste of acidic bile still fresh on his tongue.  Turning the faucet, he leaned his head down to rinse out his mouth, but was greeted with the most disgusting, rust-brown water he’d ever seen.    


“Shit!”  He yelled as he backed up too quickly and nearly slipped on the fluid that had flowed out of the toilet.  He grabbed one of the stall’s sides to steady himself.  What the hell was wrong with this place?  What even was this place, to begin with?  Richard tried to remember how he’d gotten here.  He had been in the dorm’s bathroom, putting away his stuff, when… when what?  He clutched his head, yet another migraine coming his way.  Something about a mirror.  He snapped to attention.  He had seen something in the mirror.  And then something else had grabbed him, and pulled him… into the mirror…

Into the mirror?  How was that even possible?  The migraine intensified, and he groaned.  Richard thought that maybe it was a better idea to just find out how to get out of wherever it was that he… was.  The pressure in his head subsided, as if his brain agreed with the idea and was no longer punishing him for thinking about literally anything else.

He gave the bathroom another once-over.  No windows of any kind, so no way to tell where he was from in here.  The exit was next to the sink, on his left.  No other way out.  No other choice.

Nodding to no one in particular, Rich pushed open the bathroom door.  But only a little.  Lost in an unfamiliar place, he felt apprehensive.  If anyone found him, he could just explain that he was lost, sure, but something else made him want to be careful.  Just in case.  He peaked out the door’s entrance.  No one.  He opened it more, so that he could stick his head out and peer around the other side.  No one out that way, either.  Exiting the doorway, he went to the left, the place he had seen first.  A short hallway opened up into a much larger room, a sign hanging from above indicating that it was some sort of cafeteria.  It reminded him of a much smaller version of the giant cafeteria all the kids had eaten in during elementary school.  He wondered if that meant he’d wandered into some sort of school, even though the place looked way too dreary for any kid to want to be there.  Plastic tables were in organized rows down the length of the room, and he could see the serving line on the opposite wall from where he stood.  No one was serving or preparing the food, though.  In fact, there was no on in the cafeteria at all.    


Well, it had been after six when he’d… left.  Lunch had long since past. 

He looked up, but was just met with a drab ceiling.  No skylights, and still no windows of any kind.  At the far end of the cafeteria hall were double doors, a sign above reading “Inmate Exit.”  Inmate?  Where was he, some sort of prison?  How had he ended up in a prison?  Looking behind him, he saw the hallway leading to the bathroom just ended in a dead end.  Rich sighed.  He really didn’t like it, but it seemed like the only way out would be through that exit.  He made to the double doors, and pushed them open as cautiously as he could.

He was met with a cacophony of human moans.  Stepping through the doors, Rich was horrified by the sight in front of him.  Extending for what had to be at least half a football field’s length in front of him were two long rows of cells.  He looked up, and realized it wasn’t just two.  The ceiling here was even higher than the cafeteria, and there were floor upon floor of cells above him.  Metal, rusted catwalks cropped out from the cells, but there were no stairs to reach the higher floors from where he was.  By looking carefully, though, he could see doors at the ends.  The cell block, he had no clue what else to call it, was wider than the cafeteria, so the doors must go somewhere else.    


“Jesus…”  Rich muttered, walking forwards more.  Now getting a closer look at the individual cells to his sides, Rich could see the doors were made entirely of incredibly thick glass.  You could see everything in the cells.  They were only a few feet wide and about twelve feet deep, with a single window on the back wall.  The windows were frosted, so he couldn’t see outside, and thick bars in front of them made any escape through them impossible.  The worst part, though, was that he realized this wasn’t just a prison.  The cell walls were padded, and the inmates all wore straightjackets kept tight with leather belts.

It was an asylum.

Richard cursed again.  He picked up the pace.  He had to get of here.

As Rich got closer to the other side of the cell block, where another set of double doors waited, a voice faintly called to him.

“Do I… know you…?”

Rich stopped, and looked around.    


“You…”

His head whipped to his left, to one of the cells he was sure the voice was coming from.  It was very faint, already quiet to begin with, but muffled even more by the thick glass door.  He didn’t quite recognize the person in the cell, but Rich was certain that’s where the voice had come from.  He walked over to it.

“Uh, hello?”

“I do,” the faint voice said.  “I do know you.”

The person inside had black hair, but his long bangs covered everything above his nose.  The straightjacket covered his torso, so Rich couldn’t identify any of that, either.  He was just sitting on the padded floor of his cell, staring vacantly ahead through his hair.

“I don’t think so,” Rich said.  “I don’t think we’ve met.”

The man, or maybe he was younger than that, the quiver in his lip made him seem more boyish, shook his head.  His bangs swished left and right.  Then, as if he had to think very hard about what to do next, he shook his head more violently.  This time, his bangs shifted to the sides, letting Richard see his the rest of his face.  Including his glowing, yellow eyes.    


“Holy shit,” he said, quietly.  He walked closer to the glass door, pressing his hands on it and looking more closely.

Louder, this time: “Holy shit.  Kyle?  Is that you?”

“Kyle…”

“Yeah, Kyle!  It’s me, y’know, Rich.  From high school?”

There was a spark of recognition in Kyle’s eyes, but he kept staring at him vacantly.  Rich had never been around drugs or people who took them, but he imagined that this was what somebody looked like when they were doped out of their mind.  Looking around frantically for a way to open the cell, Rich spotted a keypad on the wall next to the glass.

“Kyle?  I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”

Kyle shook his head, slowly.  “Don’t wanna…”

Rich looked at Kyle, confused.  “Don’t - what do you mean?”

“‘S warm.  And safe.  Comfortable.”

Comfortable?  In that tiny cell?

“Kyle, look, you’re obviously drugged or something.  There’s a keypad here, can you tell me if there’s a code I need?  Or something?”

Kyle screamed.

It started low, but slowly built in volume and pitch until it was deafening, even through that thick glass.  He just kept shrieking like that.  Rich looked around, panicked.  If this was an asylum, there had to be guards, and there was no way they didn’t hear this.

“Kyle!  Shit, dude!  Calm down!”

Kyle did not calm down.  He somehow got even louder.

Richard decided that this was not Kyle.  Kyle was a weird kid, sure, but he wasn’t some screaming lunatic.  He decided that this was just some very convincing lookalike.  Kyle didn’t have yellow eyes, after all.  He decided that it would be best for everyone if he just left.  Rushing for the doors, Rich gave the screaming Not-Kyle one last look before he headed in.    


He didn’t notice the sign above the doors that read “Violent Inmates Ward.”

The place through the doors was built differently than the large ward from before.  There was only one floor of cells here, and they curved around in a circle, except for a strip starting at the doors that cut right through the middle.  Thanks to that strip in the middle, Richard could tell there were multiple circles of cells within the outer ones, making the room’s layout resemble a big target with a line crossing through the center.  The center strip was the same cold concrete he’d been walking on since the cafeteria, with metal guardrails lining its edges, but the hallways between cells were floored with perforated metal tiles.  He wondered why.  Looking forward, he could see that the small circle in the middle, the “dot” of the target, had one large lever on the edge.  Looking up at the ceiling, he saw a large hole in it just above the center.  This place had a lot of elaborate stuff going on for an asylum.

Like the ward before, the sounds of human grief punctuated the grim atmosphere.  The moans here, though, they were less sad and more… well, just plain crazy.  He looked to his right, down the outer circle of cells.  What he could see of the inmates was something more fitting of what he imagined when he thought “asylum.”  They were ranting and raving to themselves, some even foaming at the mouth.  All had the same bright yellow eyes as Not-Kyle.  These guys, at least, Rich had no objection to seeing locked up.

Resisting the urge to just high tail it back to where he’d come from, Rich walked down the center path, towards the circle with the lever.  He got about halfway before a voice called out to him, one that sounded familiar, and significantly less crazy than the others.

“Hey!  Come over here!”

Rich looked around, trying to pinpoint the voice’s location over the shrieks of the other inmates.

“Yeah, you!”  The voice said, louder this time.  It was coming from his right.  Rich hesitated, but then decided a guy behind multiple-inches thick glass couldn’t do all that much to him.  If someone here knew him, than he would be one step closer to finding a way out.  He climbed over the guardrail, and walked down the curving cell hallway, trying not to look at the mad inmates.

“Warmer!  You’re getting warmer!”  The voice teased, as he got closer.

“Aaaand there!”    


The person sitting in the cell in front of him was sitting with his back turned turned away from Rich, so that the only thing he could make out was his brown hair.

“Took you long enough.”  The man in the cell said.  “I’ve been waiting here forever, y’know.”

“Uh, sorry.”  Rich had no idea why he even apologized to this person he didn’t know.  The man snorted, then stood.  His back was still turned.

“Bet you’re looking for the way out of here, huh?”

Rich nodded enthusiastically, even though the man in the cell couldn’t see him do so.  “Yeah, can you tell me?  This place, I don’t even know how I got here.  What even is it?”

“What’s it look like, dumbass?”  The man said, laughing.  “It’s an asylum.  Where all us crazy people are kept.  Waiting to be rehabilitated into proper citizens.  Though, between you and me, I don’t think anyone in here ‘cept us has got what it takes to make that happen.  Those other guys?  Total lost causes, every one of them.  I mean, I’m just crazy, but they’re stupid, complacent, and crazy!”

“Uh, right.  Can you, uh, just tell me the way out?”

Then something hit him.

“You said ‘us.’  Why us?  You’re the one locked up in here, not me.”

For some reason, the man found that just hilarious.  He spent a good minute laughing his head off, gasping for breath between his great, heaving guffaws.  Eventually he calmed down, though not before a final burst of giggles.

“You think so, huh?”

The man in the cell turned around.

Richard stumbled back, taking in a gasping breath so fast that it actually hurt.  His brain tried to reject what it was seeing, because what he was seeing was straight up impossible.  He tried to come up with any sort of explanation, but his train of thought had gone completely off the rails.  He kept trying to back up, hit the wall created by the next row of cells, stumbled again, and fell on his backside.  He instinctively kept trying to back up, kicking his heels against the metal floor.

The man in the cell was him.  Right down to the way he parted his hair in the middle so that his short bangs hung down to meet the sides of his forehead.  The him in the cell had the same yellow eyes as the other inmates and Not-Kyle, and though his face was his too, it was twisted into a sadistic smile.

“I know, I know,”  Not-Him said.  “Quite a shock, right?  You’re you, over there, falling on your ass like an idiot, but I’m you too.  And, if I’m being totally honest with you, I think I’m the better, more handsome you.  I mean, I’m taking this all pretty well, don’t you think?  Meanwhile, you, you panic and try to run away.”

Rich didn’t really have anything to say to that.  He just kept staring at Not-Him, mouth stuttering words that wouldn’t come.  Meanwhile, Not-Him continued talking.

“But I guess that’s just how you’ve always been, huh?  A big baby.  Just going through the motions of life, too scared to do anything but the minimum, too scared of what other people think.  Too scared to have, I dunno, any personality?  At all?  I mean, sure, I’m crazy, but at least that makes me interesting.  You, you’re just… milquetoast!”  He laughed again, taunting.  “You’re not smart, you’re not brave, you sure as hell not charismatic!  You’re not skilled enough to do anything, and you’re not enough of a leader to tell other people what to do.  What even are you?  What are we?”

Rich, meanwhile, was finally figuring out how to make words again.  He raised a shaking finger, pointing at Not-Him.

“You…. y-you’re not…”

Not-Him rolled his eyes, then placed his head against the glass.

“Oh man, here it comes.  The denial.”

He gulped, then forced the words out.  “You can’t be me!”

Not-Him laughed again.  Those yellow eyes glowed brighter, until it looked like they were on fire.

“Man, that’s just what I was hoping you’d say!”

Then he reared back, and headbutted the glass as hard as he could.    


_ Wham! _

Richard jumped, even more terrified now at Not-Him’s utter lack of regard for his personal safety.

Again.   _ Wham! _

Richard struggled to stand, knees shaking.

_ Wham! _

_ Wham! _

He got to his feet, just as Not-Him reared back for another headbutt.  He saw blood, more like black ooze, pouring out of the self-inflicted wound on Not-Him’s forehead.

**_WHAM!_ **

The glass cracked.  The inches thick glass cracked.  A thick spiderweb spun its way out of the point of impact.  Rich ran.

“Pathetic!”  Not him called after him.  A second voice, this one in Rich’s own head, joined him.

_ “You’re so pathetic!” _

A third voice, this one from sort of speaker system: “Escape attempt detected in Violent Inmate Ward!  Escape attempt detected in Violent Inmate Ward!  Engaging electric inmate suppression system in five seconds!”

Electric inmate what?  Rich looked down at his feet as he ran.  Now he know why the floor was metal.  He saw sparks flying underneath the holes in the floor as the system warmed up.

“Four!”

Rich ran as fast he could.

“Three!”

The sounds of his shoes on metal was now mixed with a loud humming as the system prepared to fire.

“Two!”

The guardrail for the center path, where it was safe, was in reach.

“One!”

He vaulted over it, falling onto the concrete floor just in time to here a loud whirring, then the sound of surging electricity.  Sparks leaped up from the metal floor where had just ran, and he could sae blue bolts running down the guardrail he had just been touching.  Close.  Really close.

Rich’s troubles weren’t over.  He heard a clanking sound coming from above, from the hole in the ceiling.  Something was coming from up there, and he didn’t want to find out what it was.  He just needed to get out.  He clambered to his feet, running back through the double doors into the big cell block.  The sound of boots hammering above and behind him pushed him onwards.  He ran past Not-Kyle’s cell.  He was still screaming his head off.  Rich didn’t dare look back, but he could tell someone, multiple someones, was close behind him.

“You there!”  A voice called.  “Halt!”

But he did not halt.  Rich charged into the cafeteria.  He had no idea where he was going or how it was going to get him out of there, he was purely driven by fear and panic now.    


Down the cafeteria hall, back towards the bathroom where he’d came.  Into the bathroom.  The stomping boots weren’t far behind.  And they wouldn’t have to look long.  There weren’t many places to hide.

In the bathroom, Rich looked around.  Nowhere to hide.  Nothing to use as a weapon.  But then, his eyes caught his reflection in the full-length mirror.  The mirror.  He had been pulled into a mirror in the dorm!  Was that the key?  Had it been literally staring him in the face this whole time?    


With no time to think about it too hard, Rich braced his arms in front of him.  He charged towards the mirror.

“Please work please work please-”

He ran into it.

**Sunday, September 3.  8:00 p.m.**

And fell out the other side.

Into his dorm’s bathroom.  Once again, face-first onto the tiled floor.  At least this one was much more clean.  Rich groaned.

“What was that!?”

Mark was had ran into the bathroom, and stared at the fallen Richard.

“What the hell happened, man?”

How was he supposed to answer that?

“Tripped.”

Tripped.  That’s what he settled on.  He sounded so incredibly stupid.

“Tripped.”  Mark echoed.  He offered a hand.  Rich took it, pulling himself up.

“You okay?”  He asked.  “Where’ve you been, anyway?  You were putting your bathroom stuff away in here, I went to watch some TV, but then I didn’t see you after that.”

“I was just, uh, in my room.  Then I had to use the bathroom, and I just.  Y’know.  Tripped.  It happens.  Guess I’m just pretty tired out.  Y’know, from all that happened today.”

Mark gave Rich a weird look.  But he seemed to buy it.

“Right.  Uh, maybe you should get some rest.  All that driving, orientation… Yeah, I guess you would be tired.”

Rich nodded.  “Think I’ll just hang in the room for the night.”

“Yeah, sure.  You’re sure you’re okay?”

Rich was already heading out of the bathroom.    


“I’m sure.”

Left on his own, Mark just shrugged.  He looked at where Richard had fallen, just in front of the mirror.  Weird place to fall.  There wasn’t even really anything to trip over.  Then he remembered something Rich had said earlier, about the mirror.  Curious, he poked it.  Nothing.  Shrugging, he turned and left.

Behind him, the mirror rippled.  Yellow eyes peered out from within.

**The Velvet Room.**

Olga watched her master rest.

Resting was the only way to describe it, because sleep implied something different than what he did.  Igor was sitting at his desk exactly the same way he always did.  Legs crossed underneath the desk, elbow propping up his arm and hand, which in turn propped up his chin.  His other hand sat on the desk.  Normally drumming fingers were still.  Igor’s eyes were closed, and his usual wide grin was replaced with a tired frown.  Olga’s master did not need to sleep.  He needed to rest.  To recover.  This was one of the very few times she had seen him need such a thing, one of the even fewer times she had seen him change expressions like this.

That was, in fact, why Olga was here instead of one of the other attendants.  Her master had recently been involved in an altercation, one that had taken a great toll on him.  One that made her dedicated presence a necessity.  Olga was the oldest among her siblings, the most experienced and the most stable.  She would stay by her master’s side until it was no longer necessary.  And she definitely wouldn’t go chasing after one of the children that visited this place.  She would not go chasing after something she could never have, unlike some of her foolish siblings.  Definitely not this one.

Olga felt a ripple pass through her.

Yes, definitely not this failure of a guest.

Igor opened his eyes.  He had felt it too.  The grin came back.

“It would seem,” Olga said, not entirely without smugness.  “That I was correct.”  She took a puff of her cigarette.    


Igor turned his eyes toward her.  “Do you truly believe so?”

Olga sighed, smoke pouring out of her mouth and nostrils.

“I understand the position you are in.  You are weakened, but…”

“But, the Enemy will not wait for my recovery.”  Igor finished.  “For them, it is an opportunity to be seized.”

“Surely you could have chosen another.”

“Out of all current choices, he has the most potential.”

“But he is the least likely to act on that potential.  You know it.  He has already failed to face himself.”

Igor hummed.

“He still has another chance.  If he chooses to return of his own free will, he can yet succeed.”

“A chance.  We risk it all on chance?”

Igor steepled his fingers together.

“My dear Olga.  You have been with us for quite some time, now.  Surely you must know that we always risk it on chance.  That is the nature of the game.”

His eyes turned back to the door.

“And we always defeat the odds.”

Olga had nothing to say to that.  Igor returned to silence as well.

Together, they waited for the guest’s return.


	6. The Shadow Knows

**Monday, September 4. Labor Day. 11:30 a.m.**

Eventually, Rich had found his way to sleep, and this time it wasn’t interrupted by weird dreams; ones about strange men with huge noses or otherwise. He’d even slept in until ten, and he realized that he was pretty lucky to have had a buffer day to rest up from the travel. And also what happened last night, which he was trying very hard not to think about. Settling on a day of nothing, Rich had been eating a bowl of cereal at his desk and halfway to convincing himself that whatever had happened had been a hallucination caused by stress when Mark knocked on the door.

“Hey, man. We got nothing going on today, right? Let’s go into the city.”

Rich gave him a look. “The city? Why?”

“You said you were from upstate, right? Bet you haven’t been in the city that much.”

He rubbed his neck. “Only on trips with the family. And, uh, when I drove through to get here, of course.”

Mark clapped Rich on the shoulder. “Then let’s go, man! Taking a trip isn’t really seeing the city. Bet you only saw the Statue of Liberty or something. That’s not the real city. I know this great little place in Chinatown we can grab lunch at.”

Rich swiveled in his chair to face Mark. “Can I ask you a weird question?”

“Uh, sure, I guess.”

“Okay, well, don’t take this the wrong way but, why are you being so… nice? I mean, I really appreciate all the help, but it just seems to be… a lot. That you’re doing. I mean, we just met yesterday, and you’re already inviting me out to lunch?”

For a moment, there was a weird look on Mark’s face. He seemed like he wanted very much to say something, but then changed his mind. He rubbed the back of his neck, instead.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to go. Sorry if I came on… strong.”

Rich was not the most perceptive man in the world, but he could tell that Mark was hiding something from him. Still, he didn’t want Mark to feel like he hated him or anything like that. He seemed like a good enough person. Whatever he wasn’t saying couldn’t be that bad.

“Nah, forget it. Let’s go. Chinese sounds good, anyways. Let me just get rid of this bowl and use the bathroom before we leave.”

Mark looked up, nodded. He seemed relieved, but like the events of last night, Rich tried to not think about it too hard. He dumped his bowl into the dorm’s kitchen sink, telling himself he’d clean it up later. Then there was the bathroom, which he really did have to use, yesterday was still sticking in his mind. After a moment’s hesitation, and internally berating himself for being afraid of what had obviously been some sort of dream, he stepped in, and started washing his face.

“Thought you could just get rid of me, did you?”

Rich’s head jerked; he looked into his yellow-eyed reflection in the vanity mirror. Not-Him still wore that crazy psycho-smile.

“Once you’ve seen me, recognized me, I’ll never really leave. Not even in this world.”

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the voice. If he just looked away and left, it wouldn’t be there, because it obviously wasn’t real. It was some sort of hallucination, Rich didn’t know how, but that was what it had to be, because the only other excuse was that he was going totally insane, and insane people didn’t know they were going insane.

“Would it really be so surprising, to find out you were cracking up? You are in a straightjacket, after all.”

Rich kept his eyes screwed tightly shut.

“Shut up, shut up. You’re the one in a straightjacket, and that doesn’t even matter because you are not real and you are not me.”

“The more you keep telling yourself that, denying who we are, the stronger I get. You keep doing that, and I might have to do something pretty drastic to get you to notice me.”

Its voice was as mocking as ever, but now it was tinged with genuine threat. Rich turned on his heel and went out into the living area, where Mark was waiting and there wouldn’t be any mirrors that would talk to him.

“Ready?” He asked. Rich nodded. They took Mark’s car which. Rich had to begrudgingly admit it was a little nicer than his.

**Monday, September 4. Labor Day. 12:05 p.m.**

They left over the Verrazano-Narrows into Brooklyn, then over the Brooklyn into Manhattan. The entire way, Rich marveled over how Mark knew all the fastest shortcuts through the city. It was so complex, like a gigantic maze, that he couldn’t help but wonder how even people who grew up here could learn to find their way around. His hometown had been small, simple, easy to navigate. The city felt like there was no plan to it. Like some people had just built some buildings, and then had kept building for over two hundred years in gigantic, irregular squares. The immense amounts of human life contained in such a relatively small space was like being trapped in a pressure cooker. He was sitting in a car with only one other person, but it was like the buildings and the people around it were all pressing much closer than they actually were.

Everyone knew about New York City. Just like any big city: the crime, the poverty, the degeneracy. There were just as many horror stories as there were ones of hope and goodness. His mom had been worried about him going to a city university. He’d brushed her off at the time, but seeing it in person, the dirt and litter, the homeless holding their cardboard signs, he thought that maybe he should have been worried too. But for some reason, he wasn’t. Not even a sense of claustrophobia from how close together everything was. He was practically thrumming with energy. Like he was a battery, and all the movement around him, the kinetic energy, was charging him up. He’d never felt anything like this back home.

“We’re here!”

Rich jerked slightly. He’d been so distracted, he hadn’t even noticed the car had stopped. Rich stepped out, ignoring the glimpse of yellow eyes in the rear-view mirror, looking around. Nothing looked all that Chinese.

“This is Chinatown?”

“Nah. We’re a street down. Too many people walking around to just drive up in there.”

He looked down the street both ways.

“Isn’t there supposed to be, uh, a big sign?”

“Side streets, my man. The gate is the way everyone goes in. We’re avoiding the crowd.”

Mark was right about that. The street was much less crowded than the main ones they passed through. People still littered the sidewalks, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable shoulder-to-shoulder midday crowd. That same thriving energy was there, stronger now, as he could hear people bumping into each other, recognizing each other, waving, or even just rudely telling each other off. Richard didn’t think he’d ever been around so many people at once, and something about it made it hard to breathe, like the air had turned to water. He chalked some of it up to the lingering summer humidity.

Rich followed Mark down the street and through a couple winding turns, and suddenly all the signs were in a different language. After sight came sound, of people talking in accents or another language entirely, trying to get customers’ attention. Then smells, the smells of fruit and meat being sold by vendors. It wasn’t the caricature Rich had built in his head, of colorful paper dragons dancing down the streets, but it wasn’t all that far off either. Mark directed him towards a building on the opposite street corner, a tiny restaurant carved out of its edge. Its crimson sign above the door had golden letters printed on it. Some characters in Chinese and below these, in smaller English print, just “Lao’s.”

“Been going to Lao’s since I was a kid. Friend of my mom’s.” Mark said, stepping through the door ahead of Rich. The store was about as small as it looked from outside: a few plastic tables organized on the linoleum floor, and a counter to order from. Paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and one of those Buddha statues sat cross-legged and smiling on the counter. The scent of cooking food hit him, stronger than outside. Chicken, pork, rice, noodles, and the oil and grease they were all cooked in. At the sound of the bell above the door ringing, an Asian woman who appeared to be in here forties greeted the two. She took hold of Mark’s arms.

“Mark, it is so good to see you!” She said, her voice slightly accented. “It’s been too long since we last talked. How is your mother? And school?”

“She’s doing good, Miss Lao. And school’s going okay, too. Or, that is, the semester hasn’t started yet. It starts tomorrow.”

“Oh, that’s right. Today is Labor Day, isn’t it?”

Rich spoke up. “You’re open on Labor Day?”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Only holidays this crazy lady closes for is Christmas, New Years, and her birthday.”

Lao ignored the comment like she was used to it and seemed to notice Rich for the first time. “Is this a new friend of yours, Mark? It is so good to see you meeting new people after,” she glanced nervously at Rich, and he noticed that Mark’s smile no longer reached his eyes.

“Well, you know.”

“Right, thanks, Miss Lao. Anyways, we’re here to get some lunch. I’ll grab the special?”

Rich, desperately wanting to break the tension, said, “I’ll take that too.”

He didn’t actually know what the special was, but anything was better than this mood.

Lao nodded to them, handed them two styrofoam cups, and went to work in the kitchen. The two sat at one of the small tables. But it seemed like Mark’s forced cheerfulness had died, and Rich was feeling so incredibly awkward, so neither had much to say. He decided he’d get a drink at the fountain machine instead. It was then, outside of Mark’s presence, he noticed that there was another pair of people inside the tiny restaurant.

“You dragged me all the way to Chinatown on our lunch break because you like their General Tso’s?”

“It’s extremely good General Tso’s.”

The first voice belonged to a woman: wavy, shoulder-length ginger hair, emerald eyes, a light spattering of freckles across her sharp nose and cheeks. Rich could almost call her cute, if not for the tired circles under her eyes and the peculiar way her forehead wrinkled. She didn’t look old, but was older than him, probably in her mid to late twenties. It sounded like she was trying to keep her voice level, serious, but couldn’t quite hide the amusement.

Her companion was an older man, and the two were a study in contrasts. Her hair was full, his was thinning, and grayed at the temples. She was tall, all sharp angles and edges. He wasn’t short, but his slouch made him look it, and if he ever had any edge, years of fast food and beer had rounded them out. Even among all the New Yorkers Rich found himself now surrounded by, this man had the most outrageous New York accent he had ever heard. Both of them were wearing ties and suits, but not the super-professional-businessman kind. The man, especially. His tacky orange tie was loose and his shirt didn’t seem to fit as well as it may have in the past.

“Whatever. I’m getting a drink.”

Rich was finishing up with his own drink and he registered the woman standing behind him, forming a two-person line for the drink fountain. Out of an obligation to avoid rudeness, Rich hurried it up. Too quickly. He turned and bumped right into the woman, and just barely managed to keep hold of his cup.

“Sorry…” He muttered, before he caught an eyeful of a gilded shield hanging from a necklace. He coughed. “Um, officer.”

“It’s fine.” She said back.

And that was the end of that encounter. Rich sat back down and Mark gave him some ribbing over nearly falling flat on his ass and accidentally assaulting a cop, but they otherwise ate in silence.

As it turned out, General Tso’s was the special.

**Monday, September 4. Labor Day. 12:55 p.m.**

The dorm was a little more busy than yesterday. He couldn’t have blamed people for wanting to be scarce after what happened, and maybe more people had moved in. Whatever the cause, he ended up meeting more people and shaking more hands and being forced into far too friendly hugs. He wasn’t very good with people, all the interaction just tired him out. Mark was the one person he didn’t find himself being awkward around, and at some point he had disappeared into the bathroom. Come to think of it, he’d been in there for what felt like a while. Rich checked his phone. A half hour. He wondered if Lao’s was as good as Mark said, or if the chicken had been the cause of his untimely death on the toilet. He knocked on the door.

“Mark? You ok in there?”

No answer. Weird.

“You didn’t fall in, did you?”

Again, no answer. Now he was worried. He jiggled the doorknob, and found it unlocked. The bathroom was empty. No one on the toilet, no one in the shower, and there wasn’t exactly any place to hide.

“Mark? This is weird, dude.”

A voice that wasn’t Mark’s greeted him.

“Mark had an unfortunate fall.”

Richard was really starting to hate the sound of his own voice. Not-Him’s voice. Who wasn’t really him. He faced the yellow eyes in the mirror.

“What did you do.” He demanded.

“I warned you. If you kept ignoring me I’d have to do something big to get your attention. How’d I do?” The him in the mirror smiled his smug smile. “You should’ve just given me what I wanted. All I wanted was for someone to pay attention to poor little ol’ me.”

“You did- you dragged him in-” Rich was having a hard time forming a response to his insane doppelgänger. “Bring him back. Right now.”

“Ooh, no can do. I may have… coerced him into falling in, but I don’t have the power to bring him out. Looks like you’ll have to come in and get him yourself. Unless you’re too chicken.” Not-Him faded from the mirror with a dark, mocking laugh. Like a cheshire cat, the golden eyes and his rictus grin were the last to go.

Rich’s first thought was to call for help. But what was he supposed to say? Mark got sucked into a mirror by his evil clone?

His second thought was to run away. Just leave it be. Maybe Mark would come back on his own. Maybe he wouldn’t, and his disappearance would be left as an unsolved mystery. But at least Rich would be safe, not having risked his life for someone he had known for less than two full days.

But that thought made something twist in his stomach, and he knew that there was only one choice he could live with, even if it lead to his death. So he locked the bathroom door, and looked back into the mirror. He placed his hand on it, and it rippled as if it were made of liquid. He jerked it back, but then, more carefully, pushed it back on the mirror, and into it. He took a couple of breaths. Then he stepped in.

**Unknown.**

The cold bathroom still looked the same. They hadn’t even bothered to clean up the filthy water that had, by now, covered almost the entire floor. He wondered if it would have continued flowing infinitely out of the bathroom if it were not for the small drain set in the floor drawing the water in. Just like before, he felt sick from the feeling stepping through the mirror gave him. Like the whole world had flipped around him in one moment. Which, now that he had a moment where he wasn’t panicking and thought about it, it essentially had. It was twisted, but what he had seen of the asylum so far had somewhat matched the layout of the dorm. Bathrooms were in the same place, the cafeteria matched the living area, and, he shuddered at the realization, the area with the padded cells where were the actual bedrooms were. It wasn’t a one hundred percent match, the asylum was obviously bigger than the dorm, but the idea behind it was pretty clear.

His stomach twisted again at these thoughts, but this time he managed to prevent himself from throwing up.

Okay. Find Mark. Get out. It was simple, if he thought about it like that. It was the only thing he had to do. Ignore everything else.

He left the bathroom, snuck into the cafeteria. It was empty again. He wondered if any of the inmates actually ate here, or if it was all just for show. Next, the exit for inmates. He hesitated here. This place had been the most disturbing of all, with the people moaning in captivity. Worst of all, if Not-Kyle was any indication, they liked it despite their moans. None of it made sense. He placed his hands on the door, but jumped when a distorted squawking sound blared from somewhere above him. Rich jumped, and his head whipped back and forth in an attempt to find the source. Above him, hanging from an upper corner: a megaphone, some sort of intercom system.

“Attention, all staff: a trespasser has been found on the premises, and is currently being transported for questioning. He is to be regarded as dangerous. Please be advised.”

He didn’t need three guesses to know who the ‘trespasser’ was. This spurned him on, and he stepped through the double doors and was immersed in the dark moans of the people in the cells. There didn’t seem the be guards on this bottom floor, but the sounds of boots marching on metal above him prompted him to sidle up against the wall. Looking up, he could see guards patrolling the catwalks above him through the metal grating. Having only run away from them the first time, he had never actually seen them.

They all wore stark white scrubs, like nurses, but over those scrubs were pads that reminded him of some sort of SWAT team. The combination of gas masks and helmets hid their heads entirely, and as far as Rich could see, they didn’t have an ounce of skin revealed at all. He also noticed that, with no little worry, they were all armed with billy clubs at their waists. But what was strange about them was that they all looked exactly the same. Not just their matching outfits: their heights, their hulking builds, all were exactly the same. None of them seemed to be paying much attention, though. They walked back and forth on the catwalks like zombies, never looking away from what was exactly in front of them. Good enough for him, since it let him sidle along the walls, ignoring the cells that passed right behind him, until he reached the other side. This time, Rich saw the sign: Violent Inmates Ward. For the millionth time in so many minutes, he shuddered.

He looked through the window above one of the door and saw that, unlike last time, there were guards in here too. Maybe discovering Mark had set them on higher alert, or something. He could see two from his position: one patrolling one end of the path cutting down the middle, the other guard patrolling the opposite end. He hoped that those were the only guards in the room, that they didn’t have anyone around the cells because of the electrified floors. He watched the guards for a minute, memorizing their simple patrol pattern. They’d walk out to the edge (he had to duck to make sure the closest guard didn’t see him through the window) and then turn back, walking back to face each other in the middle, circuit around the small center, and switch sides, walking down to the far ends again.

He waited for them to approach the center again and, taking a deep breath, ducked through the door quickly. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought it all through, and didn’t realize the door would slam behind him. The guards perked up at the noise, looked at each other, then looked back at the door Rich had come through. Panicking, knowing they were coming, he crouched and rolled underneath the handrail and towards the cells on his right. Then, quietly as possible, he began sneaking around the room. As long as no one caused a commotion, he wouldn’t have to deal with the electric floors. Luckily, most of the inmates were surprisingly docile for what was supposedly the ward for ones who were violent. The ones who weren’t pounded on the glass and screamed or talked gibberish, but that seemed to be the default state and didn’t set off any alarms.

Rich found that not only was the room laid out like a big target with its increasingly smaller rings approaching the center, but also a sort of maze. The rows of cells had gaps in them that allowed him to pass further towards the center, and it was only after going through a couple that he knew exactly where this maze was leading him. Like that was the purpose behind its design.

Just ignore him, Rich told himself as he peaked around the corner to the next row of cells. Maybe he won’t notice you. He mustered what confidence he could, and creeped towards, and hopefully past, the cells.

“Man,” said his voice. “You think too loud. Could hear you coming from a mile away.”

Rich winced. So much for the stealth approach. He ignored the voice, and just kept walking. He didn’t even look, not even when Not-Him bumped the glass, trying to get his attention.

“Oh no, no, no. You can’t walk away! This is what it’s all been leading up to! Our epic do-or-die confrontation! You can’t just ignore me! If you do, I will for sure never, ever go away.”

Rich kept walking.

“Have it your way, then.” There was the sound of struggling, then a grotesque snap, and that got Rich’s attention for sure. He looked back towards his double’s cell, and saw that he had somehow gotten his arms free of the straightjacket. He had seen once, in a movie, that it required dislocating one’s own shoulders. His clone really did belong here.

But the shoulder injury didn’t stop him. He started pounding on the glass with his fists, and Rich noticed that the cracks from last time had been repaired. Not for long: they started appearing again where his fists impacted, and he had no idea how his double could be so monstrously strong. Rooted in place by the display of strength, Rich only turned to run once he realized that his double was dangerously close to breaking out, the cracks now covering the entire thick sheet of glass that kept him contained.

Just after he turned, there was the sound of shattering glass, and blaring sirens, and something caught him and tripped him. He turned and saw it: his double had dived and wrapped the extra long sleeves of his straightjacket around his legs.

“Escape attempt detected in Violent Inmate Ward! Escape attempt detected in Violent Inmate Ward! Engaging electric inmate suppression system in five seconds!”

Richard was panicking now, kicking at the sleeves that entangled his legs, trying to get out before the electric floors heated up. The guards would have heard it, too, he could already hear their pounding boots.

“You’re not going anywhere, coward!” His double shouted, crawling up towards his legs and grabbing his ankles.

“Four!”

Rich tried to kick at his double, but his grip was airtight. He was starting to pull himself up his legs now, grabbing onto his pants and then shirt has he grew closer.

“Three!”

“Get off!” Rich yelled. The guards were getting closer. His double was practically on top of him now.

“Two!”

His double straddled him, pinning Rich’s arms with his knees. His hands wrapped around his throat.

“One!”

A million volts flooded their bodies, and both Rich and his double convulsed, screaming. However, his double did not release him, his ironclad grip around his throat cutting off his breathing as the rest of him spasmed under the electric shock. Eventually it stopped, and somehow Rich had survived and remained conscious. Not like that made anything better. He was still being choked to death. He was still going to die here, killed by a yellow-eyed double in a mirror world that made no sense.

“Now you have to listen to me! No more running away from ourselves!” Not-Him shouted, his voice warping into an even more distorted version of his own’s. “Do you even know who we are?! What you are?! You’re nothing! You’ve gone through life being nothing! Because being something is just too fucking hard for you! You just go with the tide, hoping that’ll be enough to please everyone; your parents, even yourself! You graduate high school, go to a college, and for what?! Some shitty degree and some shitty dead-end job and some shitty, empty life!”

His hands tightened around his throat, and darkness crept around the corners of his vision. But the words cut through the haze like a knife through butter.

“When was the last time you even felt anything, really felt anything?! Anger, sadness, fucking teenage lust, anything! You can’t even remember! You’ve let yourself turn into nothing because-” and here he pounded Rich’s head into the metal floor with each word for emphasis- “you’re too! Fucking! Scared! To be anything!”

His double’s forehead was covered in sweat, and his face was twisted into something terribly ugly, something Richard didn’t think his face could ever be capable of doing.

“Well I’ll tell you what,” his double continued, panting. “Since you’re doing such a shitty job of having a life, I’ll take over for you. And you can stay here, all tucked in and safe, just how you want. Doesn’t that sound so much better?”

Richard coughed, trying to make room where there was none in his throat, and this only made the tears streaming down his face sting harder. It was like the double’s words sliced down to his very soul, cutting it open and letting all the truths he tried to deny bleed out.

“What’s that? You look like you wanna say something.” His double mocked. “Don’t be shy, spit it out.” And his grip loosened on his throat, just enough to let him gasp out a breath and a few words.

“I get it,” He gasped. “What you are, now. You’re…” He coughed. “You’re all the bad stuff in my head. All the stuff I try to ignore.” The grip was even looser now, his double seemed to agree with his realization.

“And I know that you want… want to replace me, so you can go crazy out there, but… but I know you’re right, too. That I’m scared… of living.”

The double’s grip had become so loose now that he managed to wiggle and free his hands, grasping at the ones around his neck. The words were coming on their own now.

“So… so my first act, of living, will be to accept what you are. You’re my shadow, and I can’t ignore you.”

His hands moved up, over arms, grasping onto shoulders, pulling, until he could grab his shadow’s neck too.

“But you aren’t me. Only the bad parts. The insecurities. I won’t be you. I’ll be better.”

That seemed to calm the shadow. He released his grip on Richard’s neck, and it was like he turned transparent, falling and fading into his true self. Finally, Richard could breathe again, and he felt lighter than he ever had.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the guards from surrounding him as soon as his Shadow had disappeared. This time, they were joined by another man with golden eyes. He was probably long into his forties, with graying hair and sagging skin on his face making him look like a tired dog. He wore the stereotypical outfit of a prison warden, covered in badges in all colors and different shapes, especially the big gold star pinned to his chest. Golden epaulettes hung off his shoulders, and his dark shoes were shined to a polish. He adjust his spotless white gloves as he looked down on Richard with contempt. He was so distracted by this new arrival that he wasn’t really sure how to react, or what to do. Accepting your insecurities didn’t help much when a bunch of big men with big sticks were staring you down.

“So this is the escaped inmate. For such a recent arrival, you are quite the problem. Two escape attempts in so many days. A nail that sticks out. Let’s see if we can’t hammer you in.” He nodded to one the guards flanking him, and it swiftly kicked Richard in the ribs. He recoiled in pain, rolling over onto his stomach. He got up on his hands and knees, only to receive another swift kick in response.

“Yes, I’m afraid that the only way you inmates will ever be made ready for the real world is through our strict regimen. Some call it harsh, but it’s just facts. Children like you will never be ready for adult life unless you learn obedience. You’re all sick in the head, and I am the one appointed with the task of making you better.” He turned on his heel, and spoke to his guards without looking at them.

“Make sure he takes his medicine.”

One of the guards nodded, and held up an almost comically large needle. It was filled with a black, gooey substance that Richard immediately recognized from the news report he had seen on TV. This place, whatever it was, was where it came from? That warden guy did all this because he thought he was in charge of their mental health? That was the reason for all these deaths?

Other guards surrounded him, holding him down and beating him into submission. The one with the syringe approached slowly.

That’s when a voice forced its way into his head like it owned the place.

 _Pathetic_ , it said. _Will you not fight back? And only just after you had determined that you would live? Do you give up so easily in the face of violence? Truly, truly pathetic._

“I don’t want to die,” Richard responded, struggling against their iron grips. “I don’t want to die, but there’s nothing I can do. They’re killing me.”

_Only if you let them. Only if you let the fear consume you. The power lies within you. Will you always live in fear of these scum? Criminals are superstitious and cowardly, fear is the only language that they understand. With my power, you could fight back, you could make them the ones who are afraid. You could rain upon them all the justice and retribution that they rightfully deserve!_

In his mind’s eye, Richard saw images. Every bully he’d ever encountered, every theft, rape, and killing he’d seen on the news. Yes, his Shadow had been right about one thing. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel, out of fear of action, and now that he did, he found these images enraged him. Every memory of every wrongdoing another had done to him and those he cared for fueled the fire that was now burning inside of him, until the pain of the clubs and boots was nothing but background static. One image was more clear than any other: a girl his age, enraptured by a disgusting drug, screaming and dying right in front of him. He knew. He knew, with the power on offer, that he could find every man who would turn an innocent girl into that and he could make sure they never did it again.

“Yes,” He told the voice. “I want your power.” And on instinct, he knew the words:

“I want you. Persona.”

A great burst of power tossed his enemies off of him, some flying into the glass cages around him. As they landed, the guards melted into darkness, and reformed into all manner of strange and terrifying creatures. Richard struggled to his knees.

_Then we will form a contract. This power is yours to take. All that is required in exchange is an act of sacrifice, to prove your dedication. You have lived a life of comfort thus far, but a life of comfort is for the weak and complacent. The path of justice is of never ending pain and sacrifice._

His hand found a large shard of glass.

_I am thou, thou art I! You have seen the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. If you wish for it to be destroyed, you must start with yourself. Will you allow it to fester, or will you cut it out like the cancer that it is?_

He plunged the shard into his own chest. The pain was incredible, and he screamed, but somehow, he withstood it.

Blue smoke poured out of the self-inflicted wound, enough to completely obscure Richard. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. The now-demonic guards recovered, and began to approach warily, unable to make out anything within the cloud of blue smoke.

That’s when the laughter started. It was loud, maniacal, more like something that would come out of a supervillain than anything normal.

He walked out of the smoke with pure confidence, like he was on nothing more than an afternoon stroll. He now wore a long leather pea coat with a high collar, a black belt with pouches, and equally dark boots. A cowl made of a hard, leather-like material covered his head entirely except for his mouth and eyes, and the edge pointed off his nose like a beak. A very long emerald scarf was draped around his shoulders, the tail falling behind his back. Behind him, his shadow lengthened and stretched. The laughter continued.

Richard spread out his arms, and his shadow rose up, coiling around his body like a snake before it rose above him. The darkness solidified, taking the form of a long, black inverness cape that hovered protectively over and around Richard’s frame. Even though there was no visible body supporting the large curtain of dark cloth, it hung as if on shoulders. If there was a neck, a crimson wrapping of flame enshrouded it, stretching behind it in two long strips, where the flame flickered and created the shape of wings. Any face was shadowed by a large, long-brimmed hat. The only thing visible beneath it were two crimson points of light.  A voice echoed from underneath the dark monster’s hat.

_“I am The Shadow - that which strikes terror in the hearts of all lawbreakers and criminals! Let it be known: the weed of crime bears bitter fruit!”_

The cape spread out, and out of its darkness came a hundred hands holding a hundred guns.

As the bullets tore through every enemy in front of him, Richard could not tell if that mad laughter came from the Persona, or from him. In the end, he didn’t care. It felt good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Persona Compendium Entry #000: The Shadow.
> 
> Arcana: The Fool.
> 
> A being based off of a hero who appeared in radio shows and pulp fiction. By day, he was a wealthy socialite; by night, he stalked the city streets in the name of justice. Using his vampire-like psychic powers, he clouded the minds of men, and his terrifying laugh put fear into the hearts of criminals. Because of this, he was often called a "benign Dracula." The character could be said to be the originator of all modern heroes.


End file.
